Am I the only one who was angered by the edition of Australian Story devoted to Richard Flanagan?

Before Richard began winning awards, people who spoke on behalf of Australian culture and values dismissed him as “unAustralian” in his writing style and “leftist” in his politics.

He was, to use a phrase which means the same to such people with or without the adjective, “a mad Tasmanian”.

But since Richard became well known overseas, the Sydney elites have changed their tune.

Now they want to own him as “a brave Australian intellectual”, as “an Australian Hemingway”.

The island which shaped him, meanwhile, is dismissed as ignorant of his talents, and too flawed and conflicted to meet his high hopes for it.

By its ingratitude - by casting him out for his “treasonous” truthfulness - Tasmania has forsaken its claim on Richard Flanagan and Sydney has assumed the lease.

Sure Tasmania is beautiful, the Continentals claim. And they can see how this might inspire Richard’s greatness. But in their sight the people of Tasmania are as ugly as the island is pretty. It is impossible for the Continentals to admit that it is the Tasmanians and their astounding story-soaked culture which has given the world Richard Flanagan. Who will be left to laugh at if the Tasmanians are finally valued as the exceptional people we are? So, Richard is shown as the Romantic hero, wandering alone through a lonely wilderness in search of himself and the truth, in direct contradiction to everything he has ever written about and stood for.

Yahoo Serious parodied all this hypocrisy exceptionally well in “Young Einstein”.

A Tasmanian genius is sneered at in Sydney until he is feted in Paris, whereupon the Sydney-siders grovel at his feet.

Serious’s point was that arbiters of taste and value in places like Sydney are too foolish or superficial to ever really hear what people from places like Tasmania say.

The point of Australian Story, and what made me so angry, is that this is still as true today as it ever was.

Rodney CroomeThe island which shaped him, meanwhile, is dismissed as ignorant of his talents, and too flawed and conflicted to meet his high hopes for it. By its ingratitude - by casting him out for his “treasonous” truthfulness - Tasmania has forsaken its claim on Richard Flanagan and Sydney has assumed the lease.

Don’t quite agree with you, Rodney, when you say Tasmanians were depicted as ugly in Australian Story. One ex-politician was, and he was given far too much space and Richard himself not enough to counter what that spiteful buffoon was saying. I expected much more about Richard himself and about his reaction to being branded a traitor—that I thought was the story that hadn’t been told, and that Richard alluded to at his launch and in last Monday’s Mercury. The writer and the activist weren’t well balanced and related in the programme. I don’t think it did him justice.

Posted by John Biggs on 04/11/08 at 08:01 AM

Rodney Croome is a great activist, but literary criticism he should leave to others ...

Posted by Gary Hemingway on 04/11/08 at 04:33 PM

I heard Yahoo Serious’ next project is the film adaptation of Death of a River Guide. Should be a cracker.

Posted by jon on 04/11/08 at 05:23 PM

John, I see where you’re coming from.

I guess my “ugly” call was because the only people in the doco who were born in Tasmania and still live here came off looking pretty bad (Lennon/loggers). Apart from Mayda, the people who were sympathetic to Richard were people from or living on the mainland. It was conspicuous that not one Tasmanian-dwelling intellectual and/or environmentalist was interviewed to explain what a tremendous positive impact he has had here. I would have been happy for just one comment from Pete Hay or Christine Milne affirming that Richard is valued in Tasmania because he represents us at our best. But none were forthcoming. This is why I wrote that Sydney has leased him from us.

I know my comments sound victimey, but after 40 years I’ve had it with how Tasmanians are laughed at when we fail, laughed at when we succeed, and “de-Tasmanised” when we really succeed.

Gary, You’d be surprised.

Posted by Rodney Croome on 04/11/08 at 07:39 PM

Rodney,

Australian Story is renowned for its soppy softness and its weakness. We watched a cheaply-made, quickly-made, shortly made bit of formula-feature TV journalism made by a newshound, not a film-maker’s bootlace, and filled with patently fake or painfully staged scenes of family life, pub-life, bush-life, shack-life. Fake fake fake! I shook my head. I cringed. I yawned. We got a cliche in every way—except one. And so, yes, naturally, inevitably, the cliche you point out about Tasmania’s ‘otherness’ was also there. Otherness. Other misunderstandings. But I was not angered or disappointed or surprised. We got Australian Story Pure and Simple. The exception? Richard. What a soulful mood he was in. Introverted. Melancholy. Even lit like a Halloween lantern, he subdued his buggerising film-maker. Even forced between the cut ribbons of himself in 20 second television speech bites, given a minute, he gracefully illuminated himself.

The first time I ever heard him speak was straight after Gough Whitlam sometime in 1990. Gough made the case for World Heritage and urged Tasmania to appreciate this international honour, this global tribute. ‘Bullshit’ said Flan. It doesn’t matter a hoot what they think in Paris. What matters is what Tasmanians think of their island.

But here’s another thing, who was that French writer who claimed that to be a writer is to be eternally in opposition?

Posted by Bernard Lloyd on 04/11/08 at 10:13 PM

Gee Rodney its a national program. They had to get comment from nationally recognisable characters.
I,m not sure anger is warranted here Rodney.
I accept your point about the fickleness of “sydney elites” yet I would also say that I have met a few sydney elites who have confounded my own mental stereotypes.
I would disagree that the program cast Tassie in a bad light. The program was kind to Flanagan and kind to Tassy. Perhaps too kind, but thats the nature of the Australian Story program.
What about the large crowds of adoring Tasmanian locals listening and cheering as Flanagan spoke at the anti-pulp mill rallies? They far outnumbered the lone voice of the rogue former Premier whom the program did point out had in contrast to Flanagan been rejected by his people. The program did enough to distinguish between the Tasmanian communities regard for Flanagan and the Tasmanian governments. In terms of government emnity towards Flanagan, well…is any prophet accepted in his hometown?
I thought the program quite simply and successfully portrayed Flanagan as an authentic human being who was cast by an authentic environment - his homeland - Tasmania.
A person to be valued and a place to be valued and preserved.

Posted by Rick Pilkington on 04/11/08 at 11:56 PM

I take the point that perhaps my indignation should be directed at a more worthy target. I also take the point that geography is a poor classifier - there are plenty of Sydney-siders who aren’t condescending hypocrites. Of course, Richard came across well as he always does because he’s never limited by anyone’s stereotypes.

But I’m not sure about Richard being portrayed as the product of his environment. His physical environment sure. But the impression we were left of his social environment was that it is his antagonist, or, at best, his clay. This is important not just because it perpetuates the old myth of Tasmania as a beautiful land full of benighted and/or inert people. It’s important because a core theme of Flanagan’s work is that what matters - all that matters - is our relationships with those around us. Flanagan has done more than anyone to challenge the Romantic myth that truth is found in solitude, be it the solitude of the wilderness, the solitude of a city street, or the solitude of a prophet spurned in his own land. The way Australian Story used Richard to re-affirm this myth was a form of violence not only against what is good/creative/proactive about Tasmanian society, but against Richard’s life-work.

Posted by Rodney Croome on 05/11/08 at 08:39 AM

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